There is also the phenomenon of “peak nostalgia”, guys in there 50’s and 60’s might pay up big for their dream car, but once they start to hit late 70’s the are looking to sell them, and the market for the cars that are nostalgic to that generation is drying up, so prices collapse.I think you are spot on, my son offloaded his RX2 coupe for exactly the same reason, also cars for a cause are raffling collectable cars at a hell of a rate these days.
We might at last see a serious caravan capable electric tow vehicle with a decent range.Ram Trucks has unveiled its first battery electric (BEV) light-duty pickup truck (or a ute, as we would call it in Australia), the Ram 1500 REV.
The massive vehicle is available in two battery options, including a 229kWh battery with a targeted range of 800 kilometres, and claims to have the best combination of range, towing, payload, and charge time.
The Ram 1500 REV will be capable of towing up to 7 tonnes and a payload of up to 1.2 tonnes, and the truck will also be able to add 180km of charge in only 10 minutes with 800V DC fast charging at up to 350kW.
Built on the new STLA Frame body-on-frame architecture designed by parent company Stellantis, the RAM 1500 REV will come standard with a 168kWh battery with a targeted range of 560km.
The optional 229kWh battery pack will deliver a range of up to 800km.
Ram Trucks is also promising an all-new Ram 1500 REV XR with a “class-shattering range” which is set to follow after the introduction of the standard Ram 1500 REV.
imagine the weight of these monsters with lithium batteries..6t???RAM trucks have announced am electric version of their "ute".
From The Driven
We might at last see a serious caravan capable electric tow vehicle with a decent range.
800km is the same as a bog standard Ford Ranger 4wd ute, which are popular among the caravan towing fraternity.
Scheduled for some time in 2024 , one can only hope it does not take as long as the much touted tesla Cyber truck.
Ram trucks are brought to OZ in LHD livery, and converted at some cost to RHD by the likes of Trucks'n'toys, Auto group International, as well as a few others.
Mick
I really don't see the logic in this sort of vehicle for commuter use in the first place.They will kill you but save the planet ;-)
I did the Sydney Brisbane trip 1 day outside the long weekend, no congestion at the chargers at all for me.My wife and I notched up a new experience, driving on the Easter long weekend from Adelaide to Sorrento. We usually stay home for Easter. It has been a long time since we have seen the roads so busy, especially the road heading towards SA, there hardly seemed a gap between cars and trucks with Vic number plates.
I saw a petrol station with cars lined up onto the street waiting to get fuel. Why I could not answer, because there are plenty of fueling stations and prices haven't really changed. Maybe the service is extraordinary.
There was once a thing called the 'Tesla wave'. Tesla's were so few and far between when a fellow Tesla driver saw another, they would wave at each other. This long weekend I saw so many Tesla's that if I bothered to wave, I would have a sore arm. Which brings me to my new experience.
I always stop at the Horsham Tesla Super charger station, which is only 3 bays, and I have always found at least one or two bays empty. On Good Friday at 12:30pm I found them all full, 4 or 5 Tesla's waiting their turn in front of me and as I waited I watched more Tesla's turning up. Some parked to wait their turn, while others drove off, including three that were in front of me and helping reduce my wait time to about 35 minutes.
What I thought would take a few more years has come early, the ownership of EVs has increased at significant pace and owners are not afraid to drive them across regional areas.
The Tesla algorithm helps by assessing and recommending charging locations and time required so cars can move along quickly. It works well but would be magnificent if other brand charging stations could be linked so that the load can be shared. There are apps like PlugShare that help locate charging locations, but it is an agricultural hammer in a world that requires finesse and brains.
The first Tesla recommended stop was hardly worth it, just a 10-minute top up charge, I still had plenty of juice to travel to my usual stop but when I drove past that usual stop I saw why, the stations were full and people waiting.
With the next stop there was no choice, Horsham has a three bay supercharger Tesla station d is a busy thoroughfare for travelers but when it was installed there wasn't a lot of EVs on the road. My wait was 30 minutes for a Tesla recommended 20-minute charge to get to the next station. If everyone charged to 100% the wait would be excruciating, and I wonder if that was happening at the RACV station used by other EV brands. I was told that the RACV station has 6 bays, but the lineup was longer and slower than the Tesla station.
Next recommended stop was Richmond, normally Ballarat would be the better stop, but I presume that the Ballarat chargers were extremely busy, and the algorithm decided that Richmond a better solution for me. Richmond was a little off the track, but I did end up having an enjoyable time at the Prince Alfred Hotel while the Tesla charged.
The chargers our hotel carpark was a bit confusing, but they worked, Charge Hub. Plug it in and a series of lights flash, buttons with icons that I could not interpret, I tried to download the app, but the carpark is built like a bunker and no signal can in or out, the station does have a Wi-Fi but pressing it gave nothing. After a few minutes I gave up and was about to walk away when I saw that the car was charging. The charging was free all weekend, it just doesn't highlight that for you.
Three days later we left and headed in the same direction, but this time the Tesla nav told us to stop at Ballarat, which had plenty of empty bays.
Onto Horsham and again very busy, maybe slightly busier than our previous stop. Horsham seems to be the bottleneck, too few stations for the large number of EVs in the town and passing through.
We drove 1600km for a cost of $143, the drive took us about an hour and half longer, each way, than it should have. The drive experience is excellent using Auto Pilot to assist, it allows for a more relaxed drive because it is doing part of the observation of surrounding areas, braking, steering, acceleration.
Would I do it again? Yes, but maybe not during a major public holiday like Easter.
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John D surely the ale was worth the effortMy wife and I notched up a new experience, driving on the Easter long weekend from Adelaide to Sorrento. We usually stay home for Easter. It has been a long time since we have seen the roads so busy, especially the road heading towards SA, there hardly seemed a gap between cars and trucks with Vic number plates.
I saw a petrol station with cars lined up onto the street waiting to get fuel. Why I could not answer, because there are plenty of fueling stations and prices haven't really changed. Maybe the service is extraordinary.
There was once a thing called the 'Tesla wave'. Tesla's were so few and far between when a fellow Tesla driver saw another, they would wave at each other. This long weekend I saw so many Tesla's that if I bothered to wave, I would have a sore arm. Which brings me to my new experience.
I always stop at the Horsham Tesla Super charger station, which is only 3 bays, and I have always found at least one or two bays empty. On Good Friday at 12:30pm I found them all full, 4 or 5 Tesla's waiting their turn in front of me and as I waited I watched more Tesla's turning up. Some parked to wait their turn, while others drove off, including three that were in front of me and helping reduce my wait time to about 35 minutes.
What I thought would take a few more years has come early, the ownership of EVs has increased at significant pace and owners are not afraid to drive them across regional areas.
The Tesla algorithm helps by assessing and recommending charging locations and time required so cars can move along quickly. It works well but would be magnificent if other brand charging stations could be linked so that the load can be shared. There are apps like PlugShare that help locate charging locations, but it is an agricultural hammer in a world that requires finesse and brains.
The first Tesla recommended stop was hardly worth it, just a 10-minute top up charge, I still had plenty of juice to travel to my usual stop but when I drove past that usual stop I saw why, the stations were full and people waiting.
With the next stop there was no choice, Horsham has a three bay supercharger Tesla station d is a busy thoroughfare for travelers but when it was installed there wasn't a lot of EVs on the road. My wait was 30 minutes for a Tesla recommended 20-minute charge to get to the next station. If everyone charged to 100% the wait would be excruciating, and I wonder if that was happening at the RACV station used by other EV brands. I was told that the RACV station has 6 bays, but the lineup was longer and slower than the Tesla station.
Next recommended stop was Richmond, normally Ballarat would be the better stop, but I presume that the Ballarat chargers were extremely busy, and the algorithm decided that Richmond a better solution for me. Richmond was a little off the track, but I did end up having an enjoyable time at the Prince Alfred Hotel while the Tesla charged.
The chargers our hotel carpark was a bit confusing, but they worked, Charge Hub. Plug it in and a series of lights flash, buttons with icons that I could not interpret, I tried to download the app, but the carpark is built like a bunker and no signal can in or out, the station does have a Wi-Fi but pressing it gave nothing. After a few minutes I gave up and was about to walk away when I saw that the car was charging. The charging was free all weekend, it just doesn't highlight that for you.
Three days later we left and headed in the same direction, but this time the Tesla nav told us to stop at Ballarat, which had plenty of empty bays.
Onto Horsham and again very busy, maybe slightly busier than our previous stop. Horsham seems to be the bottleneck, too few stations for the large number of EVs in the town and passing through.
We drove 1600km for a cost of $143, the drive took us about an hour and half longer, each way, than it should have. The drive experience is excellent using Auto Pilot to assist, it allows for a more relaxed drive because it is doing part of the observation of surrounding areas, braking, steering, acceleration.
Would I do it again? Yes, but maybe not during a major public holiday like Easter.
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John D surely the ale was worth the effort
I gave up alcohol a few years ago so don't hunt for breweries any more, But the wife and I seek out vegan restaurants on our travels, which leads us on similar adventures into new areas and back streets and lanes we wouldn't normally travel.Whenever I travel, I look for craft brewers. They are usually away from expensive real-estate, and we end up in places that we wouldn't have seen and meet people that share new locations.
Red Hil Brewery was one such place, beautiful country that we would not have seen if it wasn't for me looking for a beer
Red Hill Brewery
Red Hill Brewery is the Mornington Peninsula' s Original Craft Brewery. Unique, independent brewery, we have our own hop garden in the heart of Red Hill, Mornington Peninsula. Enjoy our beers in our relaxed, rustic bush setting.www.redhillbrewery.com.au
Yes collectables, including cars, are generation specific in a lot of cases. A friend of mine fully restored a 1931 Chevy tourer and used it as a wedding car for a while, when he came to sell it, he struggled to get $15k there was very little interest.There is also the phenomenon of “peak nostalgia”, guys in there 50’s and 60’s might pay up big for their dream car, but once they start to hit late 70’s the are looking to sell them, and the market for the cars that are nostalgic to that generation is drying up, so prices collapse.
Whenever I travel, I look for craft brewers. They are usually away from expensive real-estate, and we end up in places that we wouldn't have seen and meet people that share new locations.
Red Hil Brewery was one such place, beautiful country that we would not have seen if it wasn't for me looking for a beer
JohnDe got a good one in the Swan Valley. I bet WayneL knows this one.Red Hill Brewery
Red Hill Brewery is the Mornington Peninsula' s Original Craft Brewery. Unique, independent brewery, we have our own hop garden in the heart of Red Hill, Mornington Peninsula. Enjoy our beers in our relaxed, rustic bush setting.www.redhillbrewery.com.au
JohnDe have a ripper in th Swan Valle. I bet that wayneL knows this one.Whenever I travel, I look for craft brewers. They are usually away from expensive real-estate, and we end up in places that we wouldn't have seen and meet people that share new locations.
Red Hil Brewery was one such place, beautiful country that we would not have seen if it wasn't for me looking for a beer
Red Hill Brewery
Red Hill Brewery is the Mornington Peninsula' s Original Craft Brewery. Unique, independent brewery, we have our own hop garden in the heart of Red Hill, Mornington Peninsula. Enjoy our beers in our relaxed, rustic bush setting.www.redhillbrewery.com.au
Ford has halted production of the top-selling electric pickup in America, the F-150 Lightning, because of a possible battery problem, the automaker confirmed Tuesday. The potential issue was discovered during the company's pre-delivery vehicles inspections, Ford spokesperson Emma Berg said.
The pause in production and delivery apparently does not apply to trucks that are already at dealerships ready to be delivered or to trucks already with customers. Ford did not provide any information about what the battery-related issue might be, its possible cause or potential consequences.
Ford has sold 18,000 Lightning pickups since production started in the spring of 2022.
Currently the best-seller in the category, the Lightning will face intense competition later this year when GM begins production of the Chevrolet Silverado EV. That truck will be joined early next year by GM's GMC Sierra EV. Tesla has said its Cybertruck will begin full production in 2024, following a number of delays. Stellantis is also supposed to begin production of the Ram 1500 Rev later next year, as well.
Last year, Ford created two separate business units within the company, one for internal combustion-powered vehicles called Ford Blue and the other for electric vehicles called Ford Model E. The F-150 truck is built at a factory near Ford's headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan outside Detroit.
The automaker has been investing heavily in battery production and recently announced a $3.5 billion investment in a new battery plant in Michigan that is supposed to begin production in 2026. The automaker is also building production facilities in Kentucky and Tennessee to build electric vehicle batteries and electric trucks.
One of those "let go" in the US was Annie Liu, the director of Supply Chain at Ford.Ford also recently announced it was cutting 11% of its workforce in Europe in part to prepare for the shift to electric vehicles there.
All change
Everything about carmaking is changing at once. The industry must reinvent itself to keep pace, says Simon Wright
Going for a spin in the first car was a bother. The Benz Patent Motorwagen, which hit German roads in 1886, needed “stain remover” from a pharmacy for fuel, mechanical parts greased by hand, and oil and water tanks filled. Then you had to spin a large flywheel to start the engine, grasp the tiller that controlled the front wheel, and push forward the lever to engage a drive belt that set the vehicle in motion. Repeat the process every 10-15km when fuel and water ran out. Yet the freedom to travel by powering a carriage with an internal-combustion engine (ice) soon caught on.
A giant industry with annual revenues of nearly $3trn has grown to provide transport to the masses. Over 1bn cars heave passengers along the world’s roads. There were many pioneers beside the Germans. The French provided words like coupé, chauffeur and cabriolet. America developed mass-manufacturing with the Ford Model T in 1908 and then slick marketing in the 1950s. Japan invented ultra-reliability and just-in-time production. Europe set the mark for luxury, sophisticated engineering and new technologies such as antilock brakes and airbags.
The next phase of the industry’s history will be one in which tech-centric firms and the Chinese come to the fore. Elon Musk’s Tesla has kickstarted electric vehicles (evs) everywhere. China may be a newcomer but it is growing fast. Until the 1980s the country knocked out only a handful of cars such as the Hongqi limousine that whisked Mao Zedong between military parades and tractor factories. But a 40-year rise to economic superpowerdom has created a car industry to match. China overtook America as the world’s biggest market in 2009. Last year it passed Germany as the world’s second-largest exporter.
The emergence of Tesla and the Chinese as serious competitors reflects unprecedented upheaval in the industry. The obvious shift is electrification. Although a few carmakers are still trying hydrogen fuel cells, lithium-ion batteries have become the key technology. In 2022 around one new car in ten sold worldwide was a battery-powered electric vehicle (ev). Adding plug-in hybrids (phevs), which combine a smaller battery with an ice, and 13% of total sales, or around 10.5m vehicles, were electrified.
China accounts for 6.1m sales of what it calls new-energy vehicles (nevs and phevs). But Tesla is the world’s biggest ev-maker, selling 1.3m cars in 2022. China’s byd is second for battery-only cars and is way ahead when counting new-energy vehicles. Of the old guard Volkswagen Group (vw) is the boldest electrifier. Yet it is only in third place, with 570,000 ev sales, 7% of its total.
Electrification is changing carmaking. The old brands have relied on the complexity and cost of ices to keep competitors at bay. Having to spend $1bn to develop an ice and another $1bn for the presses, paint shop and production lines to scale up a new firm to 150,000-200,000 units a year creates huge barriers to entry. It is little wonder that, from the second world war until Tesla’s arrival, new brands that made the transition to global significance were few and far between. Those that did, such as Toyota and Nissan in Japan and Hyundai-Kia in South Korea, leant on government support and protected home markets.
The relative simplicity of batteries and electric motors knocks down many of these barriers to entry. A host of startups in China (including Li Auto, Nio and Xpeng) and America (such as Fisker, Lordstown, Lucid and Rivian) are now following Tesla’s lead. Electrification has given a leg-up to China’s established carmakers, which were long kept from global markets by the big obstacle of icetech. China has cajoled state-owned and private companies to build a domestic evindustry partly so as to sidestep petrol power.
Congestion ahead
The arrival of a clutch of new competitors will make a highly competitive industry even more so, not least because car sales may have already passed their peak. China’s eager buyers gave the market its biggest turbo-boost in decades. But the brakes are now on. Car sales fell over the three years starting in 2018, as a saturated market, a worsening economy and the impact of covid-19 all took their toll. Global car production also peaked, at around 73m passenger cars in 2017. Slowing Chinese demand has been compounded by a shortage of the chips that are liberally sprinkled around all modern vehicles. By 2022 global production of cars had fallen to around 62m.
Forecasts vary widely, but future growth of car sales is likely to be sluggish at best. Pedro Pacheco of Gartner, a consultancy, reckons that sales will eventually return to 2019 levels but they will never go much higher. In a range of scenarios McKinsey, another consultancy, puts the annual number anywhere between 70m and 95m by 2035, but at the upper end most of the growth will be in emerging markets in Africa, India, Latin America and South-East Asia, where the bulk of demand will be for cheap cars. Europe and America have almost certainly peaked already and China is likely to do so soon. Even optimists see growth in China at barely 2.3% a year over the decade after 2019, compared with nearly 7% during the previous ten years.
Legacy carmakers face a big challenge since newcomers, especially the Chinese, are likely to have a clear advantage. Ola Kallenius, boss of Mercedes-Benz, does not underestimate the “monumental industrial task” of swapping drive trains and overturning 130 years of ice history but says that “what’s happening on the software side is bigger”. In the past car brands were defined by the adeptness of the mechanical engineering that went into their handling, their horsepower, the status of their bonnet badges and the satisfying “clunk” of closing the doors of a pricier car.
In future cars brands will be differentiated mainly by the experience of using them, which is now determined more by their software than their hardware. Software-defined vehicles, which nowadays resemble supercomputers on wheels, will have ever more features and functions such as infotainment, ambient lighting and voice controls, all improved by over-the-air (ota) updates after a vehicle has left the factory. That will open up new ways for the car producers to cash in.
Many established firms are looking jealously at Tesla, which claims to be a tech company that happens to make cars. From its roots in Silicon Valley, Tesla has gained a decisive lead in software. Yet in China Tesla is but one of several ev-makers. Chinese carmakers, startups and the tech companies they have joined up with are delivering experiences that far exceed what is available elsewhere. byd, Nio and Xpeng have all beaten Tesla to provide in-car karaoke microphones. Young Chinese who expect and even demand that their vehicles provide a seamless extension of their digital lifestyles are setting a course for the rest of the world.
The race to autonomous self-driving is also on. Though the road to fully autonomous cars is littered with obstacles, a more limited “hands-off” autonomy that takes over driving duties initially on motorways and eventually in some urban settings is close to commercial deployment. Carmakers are rethinking their involvement in ride-hailing and car sharing, with the big question over mobility becoming how best to monetise the use rather than the mere ownership of cars, triggering a rethink of car retailing.
A final test comes from new geopolitical tensions, notably between America and China. Rising tariffs, growing restrictions on tech transfers, a reshoring of supply chains and greater subsidies for home-grown manufacturing all threaten to halt or even reverse the process of globalisation. Carmakers will find adjusting to such a change especially challenging.
For legacy firms all this requires big change and re-engineering. They retain many advantages: skills in manufacturing, powerful brands and access to massive amounts of capital in an industry that eats through it. However, startups are not weighed down by the heavy legacy of siloed organisations that have for decades been dedicated to mechanical engineering and are encumbered by a complex portfolio of products that heap on costs. Not all legacy firms will survive the coming transformation.■
Well it looks as though the way forward is becoming more clear, increase the cost of ICE cars and force the importation of more E.V's.
I hope there is a real ramp up of infrastructure to avoid any bottlenecks in the power network, so it will cost the taxpayer for the infrastructure or it will cost in the increase in ICE vehicle prices.
Interesting times.
The question for the government now is how hard to go, considering Australia is already playing catch up on cutting car emissions.How many more electric vehicles will be on the road under the new EV strategy? And will they be cheaper?
You can expect many more EVs on the road in the coming years if the government imposes carbon emission caps on car makers. But how many more people will buy EVs, and will they be cheaper?www.abc.net.au
Most proposals suggest the government should either pursue a standard in line with the US, whose cars emit 20 per cent less than ours on average, or the EU, whose cars emit 40 per cent less.
A tougher standard would encourage faster take up of lower emission cars, but if it was too tough for car makers to meet they would potentially need to sell fewer cars overall to Australia or massively raise the price of certain cars instead.
Environment group Solar Citizens last month estimated that if Australia could introduce a fuel efficiency standard in line with Europe's it would "turbocharge" the growth of EVs here from about 40,000 registrations last year to more than 900,000 in five years.
Demand in Australia already outstrips supply, and even with wait lists to get an EV and the rising cost of living, EV sales so far this year have been more than double what they were over the same time last year.
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